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Paper Boats in the Monsoon: Life in the Lost World of Anglo-India

by Owen Thorpe

295 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #07-1056; ISBN 1-4251-2965-X; US$23.22, C$26.70, EUR18.10, £12.00

Boyhood to manhood as an Anglo-Indian in post Independence India remembered in all its vibrant, hilarious detail. A world now lost with the exodus of the Anglo-Indian community.

About the Book

Indian Independence in 1947 fired the starting gun for the great Anglo-Indian exodus from India. These half-caste 'children of the Raj' were never going to fit in - they were an unwelcome reminder of the past and they insisted on being different. They took with them a unique, vibrant and free-wheeling way of life, now lost forever to India. Owen Thorpe describes in colourful and hilarious detail his boyhood chasing kites and chameleons, fighting the native lads, threatening the monsoon storms and eating his weight in food each day. He recounts his experiences in a barefoot orphanage and as unwilling boarding school 'prisoner' of the grim Brothers who ran his remote hill school. All was not plain sailing as his teacher parents moved from school to school and finally abandoned him to India as they emigrated to England. He survived to work his way through college strumming a bass guitar and singing in the famous Calcutta pop scene of the 1960s as well as patronising the posher local opera, drama and motor sports groups. He found employment working for a national newspaper, where he and his colleagues were subjected to weekly attacks by howling mobs who disagreed with its editorial policy. He also spent his evenings broadcasting on radio. Finally, he reluctantly joins the Anglo-Indian exodus only to find that getting out of India is harder than he realised. He hires a lawyer to bribe and lie his way out of the country and joins his old family in England - this time accompanied by a family of his own. The book is an affectionately observed portrait of a unique culture and its entertaining characters. The author has a sharp eye for detail and a keen appreciation of the quirkiness of being an unwelcome guest in his own country.

About the Author

Owen Thorpe grew up in small town South India and went on to work in advertising, journalism and broadcasting in Calcutta before emigrating to the UK in 1970 and joining the Civil Service. There he worked as a policy adviser to Ministers, helped computerise the largest Government Department, set up the Independent Appeals Service and the Child Support Agency, represented the UK in negotiations in the European Community and worked as a management consultant in Eastern Europe. He retired in 2006 to have fun before he falls face down in his curry.